Trying to Improve My Game

from GalCiv2 Forums

I bought GalCiv2 and both expansions over a year ago. However, I only recently began playing it seriously (after a game or two after purchase I stopped playing, not realizing what I had...). At this point I've paid little attention to the difficulty settings (though always normal or above one or two difficulties), and have messed around with a variety of different galaxy sizes and configurations. However, after doing a bit of research I've found myself playing the same way consistently, and looking to improve.

I now always play either Torians, Yor, or a Custom Race using their tech trees. The reason for this lies in the Collective and School being the most cost efficient means of production in terms of maintenance-to-output. I play All-X Strategy games where I never upgrade past these most basic, cost efficient buildings, thus never really truly "overheat" early game like I've seen described elsewhere, but due to the fact I don't upgrade these structures (I never even research the means to do so, allowing me to focus my time and beakers elsewhere, but giving me a less than optimum output later on) I know I'm not playing as well as I can. Now I know that later on it would be more efficient to upgrade these structures because the demand for increased output would exceed the importance of maintenance-to-output ratios. What I am wanting to improve upon in this regard is knowing what to upgrade to and when, and how to play with other tech trees without the fear of losing these cost efficient structures.

Other than that I've largely been able to discover for myself what I need to know through research. I played my first game using economic starbases yesterday, only to have the DL come and keep blowing the damn things up. I've just done researching when and how to build a military, but have yet to take what I've learned and implement it in to a game. I am good enough at handling diplomacy and trade to keep the rest of the world at peace with me, but I feel like I'm still inefficient in truly mastering it. I have never made use of trade routes except in one of my earliest games playing Korx (before I learned how Economics/Morale/Population Growth interacted), and though it gives me the unique advantage of losing nothing from leaving the UP (which I have done on occasion), I feel I could be playing more efficiently here as well... 

I believe part of my problem concerning trade is, after reading some of the ideas within the "bag-of-tricks", I now feel like I shouldn't build Freighters until I have good Sensors, Armor, and Weapons... which I usually win the game before I feel like I have enough of any of the aforementioned bother doing so; like when it comes to upgrading buildings I don't know at what threshold I need to build them, and with what minimums would be sufficient.

Except to Culture Flip, I tend to focus very little on Influence. I realize this is a flaw, but it hasn't been a prominent enough factor in any of my games to encourage me to to look further in to it.

What I'm genuinely interested in being able to do, hopefully with the help and advice this topic brings (I can find tons of advice on how to handle the economy, but little on matters of when output is more important than cost efficiency, and the nuances of military, influence; etc.) is to be able to play a Good-aligned Iconian designed around all-X Labs and the ability to build indestructible (or close enough it makes no difference) ships...

Either way, I'm extremely eager to improve my game, and am looking forward to any advice I can give relating to any topic aforementioned, left out, or anything else I can do to get to where I want to be in GalCiv2.

strategies
10,526 views 6 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

Already my two cents though there are much more experienced players out here (I tend to play between painful and crippling difficulty):

- Improving production buildings: basically the sooner, the better because it speeds up both your building and ship construction. The two factors that delay me from upgrading my factories immediately are economy and the research time to get to this improved factory. As a result, I will first aim to research Trade (so I can build my economic capital) and some basic technologies that give bonuses to economy, social/military production, population growth or morale.
The key to having a healthy economy early on is to only develop a few planets early on. You colonize the rest but don't build anything on them until they become self-sufficient in terms of income vs. costs, or until your economy has stabilized.
With a stable economy I mean being able to sustain your current level of spending for at least about 40 weeks without going below -500bc, and of course in the long term getting a positive income.
Essential is also to lower your taxes in the first weeks of the game, to try and get 100% approval on all planets and therefore a boost to your population growth (or 76% approval if you can't reach 100%).
Getting to the next level of factories is particularly important when developing your planets, especially when you plan on building capitals or wonders + you'll need the production capacity to build medium or larger ships. I also prefer to concentrate my factories on a limited number of planets: I'd rather be able to produce 2 ships every 3 turns, rather than having to wait 12 turns and then get 8 ships.

- Exceptions: depending on the tech tree, at some point the additional MP (manufacturing points) may no longer outweigh the additional maintenance cost of more advanced factories. The same goes for labs.
Still, if your economy can support it, simply having a higher net output even if it comes at a cost, may be favorable because it will allow you to boost your military in the shortest time possible.

- Military: at the higher difficulty levels you almost have to stay ahead of the game if you want to avoid getting stomped. Usually I keep an eye on the AI military ratings (graph in the bottom-center of your screen) and as soon as I see one AI building any military, I'll research small hulls and basic weapons. Once my economy and research capacity allow, I'll go for medium hulls and better weapons, preferably being the first race to use medium hulls. From then on I'll strive to keep my military rating above the other races.
Having a higher military ratings than other races really makes a tremendous difference in how they approach you; it's rare for an AI to try extorting money from you if your military rating is higher. In some cases the AI might still declare war on you though, in particular due to some events that don't take into account your military rating.

- Influence: here I have a similar approach to yours, unless I'm facing an influence-heavy opponent: in that case I will research the necessary technologies to avoid having my planets flipping over to the other side, if necessary building influence starbases.

- Trade: I actively build freighters on my home planet as soon as my colony rush is over (using another planet for my military production). I choose which races I want to preferably ally with later on and send a few freighters to their capitals. The additional income also helps a lot early in the game, especially longer trade routes to a capital can bring in nice amounts.

Hoping this already helps...

Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

trading with freighters can also improve relations over time so you can go from "hostile" to "close" and although not a cast iron gaurantee if their getting a lot of income from trading with you they tend not to go to war with you unless you get the "ambassador slagged off the emporers bit on the side or the disgruntled employee blew the back of the aliens head off" scenarios.

Offworld Trading Company
Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

I wrote a guide many years back. It goes into details regarding the changes that Twilight of the Arnor made to the game (which includes the differences in the tech trees and different gear). It might be something you are looking for. Unfortunately, I have been too preoccupied to finish my update for it.

TA 101

Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

I play DA and I know TA has many differences.  Nonetheless, at the higher difficulty levels, it is very, very difficult to stay ahead of the AIs in military rating while doing any of the other vital infrastructure research and production, much less managing a decent colony rush.

The one relatively easy thing that can be done to gain time is to get the other AIs fighting among themselves.  That is, as son as you know what AI is on which border, get them in a war (and preferably two wars or more) with other AIs.  If this takes diplo techs, sobeit, add them to your research or racial pick priorities.

Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

Wow, nice necro. The OP and first reply are over 2 years old...

Reply #6 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

The difficulty you should be playing is tough at this setting the Ai doesn't cheat with an unfair bonus instead of a better Ai. Or U don't cheat with an unfair bonus. U should be using max Cpu U should check out the opponents to make sure the economics are at 100% and everything is maxed out. Personally I would't s use the Torians the Ai needs them. The other tech trees that would be fine R the minor race terrans korath clan at least start out with everything they need the super abilities which r good to my opinion is the super adapter the super hive the super isolationists as far as customising my favorite party is the populists but the federalists and the technologists r good also abilities make the difference pick creativity then morale economics then research playing the Krynn I hear the terrans r good to start off I'm a Krynn or Yor fan human is no fun the Torians the computer needs them if you want a challenge give them all creativity If your not playing the Torians  give them the populists because of the super breeder the other foes best with the federalists the korath sucks except with the generic Ai all the abilities in morale economice and the rest in population growth. Abilities I like creativity the morale economics research thats what I like First thing U NEED to do is build a factory then kick your approval and production up to 100 colonize a small planet the reason I do that is because U cant find an artifact on your first turn then colonize every planet U can set your flagship to auto survey build 4 factories on your planet build factories after starport on your second planet build colonies on your planets a 100 approval will help your population grow U have 3000 bc for right now dont take longer than 13 turns on your research get sensors whenever U can gtioo for planetary improvements then go for military production economics morale factories research diplomacy you don't have to worry about universal translator intill you meet someone after factories morale U don't have to worry about farming untill your planets R less than 1 billion from maxing out U don't have to worry about terraforming untill U used all your spaces on a planet U don't have to worry about trade untill your done with colony expansion U don't have to worry about weapons untill the others starts threatening you as far as building after the morale which is more expense or profit if the expence is more and U have them build markets is the profit is more and U have them build reseearch dont worry about influence